With respect to a disk array apparatus as well as a disk unit for use in a disk array apparatus, the following technologies are disclosed.
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-337792, there is disclosed a disk array apparatus in which a disk controller manages, in a mapping manner, a logical configuration of a redundant arrays of inexpensive disks (RAID) and physical location information associated with disk units constituting the RAID. This disk array apparatus writes configuration information into a disk unit before relocation. Further, after the relocation, the disk array apparatus retrieves the configuration information from the disk unit, and corrects mapping information. This is for solving a situation in which, with the relocation of the disk unit between disk array apparatus, the disk unit constituting the RAID is removed from a disk array apparatus once, and is inserted into a different location in other disk array apparatus after the relocation.
When a disk unit is moved to a new disk array apparatus having a larger mounting capacity by using such a technology described above, an administrator of the disk array apparatus installs mapping information (configuration information) into the new disk array apparatus. Thereafter, the administrator of the disk array apparatus attaches the disk unit in the new disk array apparatus.
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2010-066832, there is disclosed a controller for a storage system in which, to disk drives (disk units) constituting a RAID, a new disk is added, and this RAID is configured as a new RAID constituted by the new disk drive and the disk drives.